It took much more than 15 minutes of digital sleuthing to find three long-lost Andy Warhol works hidden on floppy disks.

Three never-before-seen images — including the late artist's Campbell's Soup can — have been unearthed from 30-year-old floppy disks, revealing technologically old-fashioned art from one of the most famous contemporary artists of the 21st century after a painstaking three-year project.

The images from the late artist were made on a Commodore Amiga in 1985, two years before the artist's death. Jonathan Gaugler, a spokesperson for the Carnegie Museum of Art, said the discovery was unprecedented.

"It's like finding a famous author's manuscripts," he told the Daily News. "It sheds light on how he works," adding that some of the files recovered included digital doodles, portraits, and the artist's own shaky signature.

It's like finding a famous author's manuscripts. It sheds light on how he works.

"You can see Warhol's learning curve," Gaugler said.

It was artist Cory Arcangel who first thought to chase down Warhol's Amiga art after he watched a YouTube clip showing Warhol promoting the Amiga in 1985. The image commissioned for the ad — a portrait of Blondie singer Debbie Harry — was previously the only known work produced on the Commodore.

Arcangel's actions ensured these pieces wouldn't be lost to digital antiquity.

Artist Andy Warhol pictured in 1972.

(Garrett, Jim)

The process of extracting these images using 30-year-old technology was no easy task. Though the majority of Warhol's many belongings from his Upper East Side townhouse are housed at The Warhol museum in Pittsburgh, the technology to read the dusty disks was not readily available.

So Arcangel teamed up with Carnegie Museum of Art curator Tina Kukielski, reaching out to Carnegie Mellon University's Computer Club to carefully extract the images hidden on the floppy disks.

The team used magnetic imaging to ensure that the original floppies weren't damaged.

The fruits of their labor were quite literal — among the discovered images was Warhol's famous images of a banana.

The Warhol's director Eric Shiner said the findings are in keeping with Warhol's personality as a consummate artist. "Warhol saw no limits to his art practice. These computer generated images underscore his spirit of experimentation and his willingness to embrace new media."

Gaugler noted that the three-year search for the lost Warhol images brought with it its own set of problems.

"We've crossed into a different age," Gaugler said of the rapid evolution of technology. "Digital art has its own set of problems. Conservationists know how to repair the canvases of Old Masters," but extracting and preserving digital art is, by and large, uncharted territory.